A liquid crystal display device, which is referred to as a “lateral electric field type”, is constituted such that a pair of transparent substrates are arranged to face each other in an opposed manner with a liquid crystal being disposed therebetween, and pixel electrodes and counter electrodes, which generate an electric field (lateral electric field) parallel to the transparent substrate between the counter electrode and the pixel electrode, are formed on each pixel region on a liquid-crystal side of one of such transparent substrates.
With respect to light which passes through the region between the pixel electrode and the counter electrode, the quantity of light is controlled by driving the liquid crystal to which the above-mentioned electric field is applied.
Such a liquid crystal display device is a known display device having broad viewing angle characteristics, whose display is not changed even when viewed from a direction oblique to a display surface.
Heretofore, the above-mentioned pixel electrode and the above-mentioned counter electrode have been formed of a conductive layer which prevents the transmission of light therethrough. However, recently, a liquid crystal display device has been developed which has a constitution in which counter electrodes formed of a transparent material are formed on the whole pixel region, except for the periphery of the pixel region, and strip-like pixel electrodes, which extends in one direction and are arranged in parallel in the direction intersecting such one direction, are formed on the counter electrodes by way of an insulation film.
In the liquid crystal display device having the above-described constitution, a lateral electric field is generated between the pixel electrode and the counter electrode so that the liquid crystal display device can largely enhance the numerical aperture while still maintaining excellent broad viewing angle characteristics. Such a technique is described in, for example, in SID (Society for Information Display) 99 DIGEST: p 202 to p 205 or Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication 202356/1999.